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Courtesy of the Bridge Project, here's a transcript of some remarks made by Rep. Paul Broun (R-Georgia) of the Science Committee of the House of Representatives -- I repeat,
of the Science Committee of the House of Representatives -- a few days ago:

God's word is true. I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I've found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don't believe that the Earth's but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says.

And what I've come to learn is that it's the manufacturer's handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that's the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I'll continue to do that.

The Bridge Project page has further details plus, for the strong of stomach, a video.



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Ken Ward Jr of the South Charleston Gazette has posted a frightening piece about the fact that, in the upcoming gubernatorial contest, West Virginia's voters have this choice:
  • a moron
  • another moron
Here's how his article opens:

Well, given their earlier answers to similar questions during the primary campaign (see here, here and here), none of this should have come as much of a shock. But it’s still something to see when the anti-science attitudes of West Virginia political leaders and candidates are put out there so clearly . . .

At last night’s debate between the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates (the broadcasters group that sponsored the event refused to allow third-party candidates to take part), Hoppy Kercheval of  West Virginia MetroNews asked: Do you believe man’s actions are causing the world to warm?

Republican Bill Maloney replied simply:
We’re in a cooling cycle.

Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin said: Once again, there are differences of opinion as to whether we’re in global warming now.

Now, we all expect Republican politicians to choose the moron option when asked anything about science -- after all, their science education comes in the form of packets of high-denomination used bills from Exxon and the Koch Brothers -- but it's alarming to find a Democrat doing the same.

Proof of human beings co-existing with DINOs, I suppose . . .


h/t Climate Progress
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Pds_lit got a communique the other day from Representative Scott Garrett that she cites on her LJ blog. It's worth quoting here, too, because . . . well, read it first:

While there is little to no positive environmental impact from the regulation of CO2, the negative economic impact is tremendous. Under this regulation, facilities that emit more than 25,000 tons of CO2-equivalent per year and newly constructed or modified facilities that emit more than 75,000 tons per year, will be required to acquire emissions permits. The cost of compliance will lead to higher energy prices, which will ultimately affect American consumers. The overall economic effect will be trillions of dollars and would lead to a decrease of more than one million jobs in our economy. While the nation suffers from numerous months of unemployment at 9 percent or higher, I do not believe we should seek to burden job creators with more government red tape . . .

You've guessed the reason for quoting it, haven't you?

Yep. It is complete and utter bullshit from start to finish. It's hard to know whether (a) Garrett has been entirely bought and paid for by the fossil-fuel industry and is simply regurgitating their falsehoods or if (b) he is so entirely ignorant and/or stupid (in this context the same thing, if you think about it) as to believe the garbage he's uttering.

But, hang on: we pay our representatives not to be ignorant about the issues, and they have staffers -- whom we also pay for -- to research the information for them. So, since Garrett is issuing this tripe with all the faux-authority of someone who supposedly knows what he's talking about, I have to go along with option (a).

Sooner or later there'll be a time when Garrett's kids are going to nail his head to the wall, because they're going to have to live -- or not live -- with the consequences of his eager snuffling at the trough today.






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In the celebrated encounter the other day on The Daily Show between Jon Stewart and FOX News presenter Chris Wallace, Stewart several times made the point that habitual FOX News watchers were on average more ignorant than the rest of the population.

(He was, by the way, perfectly correct in this assertion. You might, I guess, dispute the polls' methodology -- although no one to my knowledge has ever made a serious attempt to do -- but Stewart's assertion is nothing more than a statement of truth.)

The FOX News website, Fox Nation, was not going to take this lying down, no sirree. As Joshua Holland reported on AlterNet,

The site answered Stewart by posting the results of some Fox viewer polls and then asking, "Does this sound misinformed to you?"

• 91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs
• 72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit
• 72 percent believe the economy is getting worse
• 60 percent believe climate change is not occurring


So more than half of FOX News viewers, and in one case 91%, believe in things that can easily be, and frequently have been, demonstrated to be comprehensively false . . . and this is supposed to indicate they're not misinformed?

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